In a summer of promised musical extravagance, Jay-Z has released his 12th studio album Magna Carta…Holy Grail in what can be described as a commercial and artistic pioneering adventure. Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) has paired up with electronics giant Samsung Mobile to release his new project through an app on the popular Galaxy phone family. This seemingly ingenious marketing scheme allowed any owner of the popular smart phones to own the album three days before anyone else. A few days after this spectacular release, questions have arisen in regards to the online safety of the consumers of the app and to the true value of the product that Carter has delivered.
Jay said it best in one of his Samsung-sponsored commercials for MCHG: “The internet is the wild west…We need new rules.” I would agree with Carter in that regard and extend the significance of the statement to the nature of musical production in the 21st century. I for one applaud Jay for his attempt to re-imagine a path for the music industry to reclaim the revenue stream that has been lost to online piracy and online streaming. But in Carter’s initial attempt to dominate the new frontier of online music, he delivers an album that carries meaning but that fails to potentially revolutionize the music industry overall.
The album begins with the song “Holy Grail,” which features Justin Timberlake in what can be described as a resentful ballad directed at those who have stood in the way of Jay-Z’s success. The thematic message of the song remains consistent with the cocky “look at me now” rhymes of classic Jay-Z albums, but it is the blend of this classic Jay-Z persona with a Justin Timberlake coolness that appears to reinvigorate this identity and set the tone for the rest of the album. With an allusion to the collaboration on Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie” single, “Holy Grail” provides a sonic dichotomy between the street-bred hustler persona of previous Jay-Z works with the new, refined hip-hop mogul identity of the Roc Nation founder.
This struggle between two worlds is the critical conflict within MCHG. The album is all about extravagance and the miles that Jay-Z has put between him and all of his competitors in both the rap game and the business world. This mentality isn’t anything different from previous works by Jay, but the manner in which he approaches it in his self-described opus does bring to question the level of talent that Jay and his colleagues are bringing to the table.
Inevitably, MCHG will be compared to Yeezus, Kanye West’s similarly hyped summer album. Although both artists have collaborated greatly in the past and hold one of the most touted friendships in the entertainment industry, their new musical endeavors speak to their distinct identities in the music industry and their comparison highlights the significance of MCHG in the hip-hop consciousness of 2013. Yeezus and MCHG are each other’s foils. While Yeezus describes the life of a repentant womanizer caught in the vicious cycle of debauchery, Magna Carta…Holy Grail explores the nature of a calm, cool and collected international music mogul. The production of each album differs greatly. While West has elected to pursue a more aggressive punk sound, Jay-Z has reinvigorated his old-school hip-hop sound and added a few non-traditional alterations to create his new sound of 2013. It is within this production choice that the significance of MCHG becomes much more evident.
The presence of artists such as Pharrel, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz in MCHG push the boundaries of mainstream hip-hop rhythms, and provide a classics-oriented alternative to the chopped and screwed-molly rap of the current rap scene. A few songs that best exhibit this coaction would be the album’s third track “Tom Ford” and the thirteenth track “BBC”. Both tracks set a precedent for the album. “Tom Ford” embodies the street beat orientation of Swizz Beatz, and provides a venue for Carter to speak about not only his grandiose presence in the Rap world, but also the elegance with which he conducts his business. “BBC” brings forward a funkier anthem that features a myriad of artists like Nas and Beyoncé in an ode to the Dope Boys of the world. These two tracks embody the new Jay-Z sound and the direction in which he hopes to lead the future rap game.
If you were to draw a single impression from Magna Carta…Holy Grail it would be that Jay-Z considers himself to be on top of the hip-hop world both musically and economically. This hubris does not stray from the classic Jay-Z persona, and whether this belief is true or not is up to you to decide, but one thing that does stand true is that Jay-Z has once again delivered a product that tries to re-imagine the definition of hip-hop and an antithesis to the open-ended molly-headed rap that has dominated current hip-hop world. With a superstar production and consistently themed rhymes, Jay-Z has created an album that reinvigorates his presence in the rap game and re-imagines the idea of the drug-dealing rapper album. Despite some reservations with regards to the extra-curricular excursions of the album, I enjoyed it and can expect it to both entertain you and push your understanding of what a hip-hop album in 2013 can sound like.
